To recover emails, contacts, and calendar items use
Time Machine to restore a backup of your
Office 2011 Identities folder. For information on how to use
Time Machine, see
how to restore data from Time Machine backups. If there's no backup, we can try something different. Let's see if another identity has the missing data.
- Close Outlook.
- Press Option and click Outlook in the Dock - this will open a Microsoft Database Utility window.
- If you have more than one identity in the list, choose one that isn't bolded.
- Click
, and choose Set as Default. - Close the window, and start Outlook.
Repeat the steps until you see your information or until you've tried all identities.
If your emails, contacts, or calendar items are still missing there is another reason why this may be happening - the database file could have been moved by accident. Let's find it!
First, search for all Outlook database files.
- Go to File > Find.
- Click
. You can find it near the top of the search window. - Next to Kind, change Any to Other.
- Type Microsoft Outlook Database in the box next to Other.
If you find only one database file, your data is, unfortunately, gone. This could happen if the information was accidentally deleted.
If there's more than one file, let's find the file that was moved.
- Click each database file in the search results.
- Check the file's location at the bottom of the window.
- Ignore files that have Microsoft User Data as part of their path location.
- For the remaining files, look at the Last Opened column.
- Choose the file that was last opened around the time the Outlook data disappeared.
- If you need to, write down the folder name that contains the database file and its location.
- Now, click Go > Computer, find the folder, and drag it to your desktop.
Now let's replace the current database file with the one you found.
- Drag the folder you copied to your desktop here:
User/Home/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Office 2011 Identities
- Press Option and click Outlook in the Dock.
- Click the new identity in the list - it should have the same name as the folder you dragged earlier.
- Click
, and choose Set as Default. - Close the window, and start Outlook.
If your emails, contacts, and calendar are back, then you've found them! If not, try the steps again if more than one database file was moved - there's still a chance your data may be in one of these other files. If not, then the information is, unfortunately, gone.
Need more help? Get help from the
Microsoft Community online community or visit
Contact Microsoft to learn more about your support options.
